Sad to hear, hope everything turns out all right in the long term. 
I think members of the community should have access to a place other than discord for solving issues. Why not create a forum category for that @David_NEAR @mecsbecs? The forum is much more user friendly than discord, and much easier to manage than TG.
Always sad to hear about stuff like this 
This is so sad and unacceptable. I’m so sorry you went through this. I hope all is well from now on. And that measures are taken so that no one else is scammed.
L.
It’s disheartening to hear this news! I believe you’re steps ahead smarter than the predator. Sending love and light 
+
Sad to hear it miss @GeminiRising i also have this stories in my life but luckily in different token i hold. So now i need to be really carefull , specially to those council that holdings huge accnts for group monthly funds request…it is a very sake to bring and used your wallet to scammer mods without knowing them.
This is really a big leasson to us that we need to remember it in our life.
Hey @GeminiRising - so sorry to hear about this experience and thank you for detailing it here as a warning for others.
We must be hypervigilant always in this space and I speak for myself in this as well.
Do you have a screenshot or the username for the NEAR Protocol Official chat you mentioned? There’s always some small nuance in the name and it would be important to have it to report to Telegram. cc: @ConciergeTeam
I’ll also flag this to internal Security.
Hello. It is very sad to hear that you are going through this.
There are thousands of scammers working with hundreds of different methods on every platform in every industry. But it is true that these scammers are mostly on telegram especially targetting crypto users thanks to telegram account mechanics telegram allows you to create an identical account with someone using the same name and profile picture (but for the username tag they can’t fake it you must pay attention to it-watch for capital letters too-)
Therefore we got our community chat verified (a badge given to official channels only by Telegram) and warn and try to educate our community about such scam attempts/fake groups/impersonators 7/24 with infographics/pinned messages and by often posting relevant warnings on main chat.
Our telegram verification mark
the Community Mod tag must be checked before sending a DM/PM to any Mod/Admin for support, etc.
Crypto communities are very active on telegram and I believe we have to offer such services and support there as well.
Again, I’m really sorry for what happened to you
and due to our high popularity and increase on scammers we put the warning on the welcome message as well, which also include a picture captcha (the one pops out on every new user arrival)
Hey …username… Welcome to NEAR 
Please Check Pinned Messages First. Beware of Scammers
ADMINS NEVER DM FIRST
there are two things to mention again.
1st probably you ended up in a wrong chat.
2nd even if you end up in the righr group Telegram: Contact @cryptonear scammers/impersonators can DM you (or anyone) easily.
this is how telegram works in order to send private messages to someone you don’t need to be a member of that group or a mutual group with the correspondent.
3rd you must have noticed that we warn you on welcome post that
“WE (ADMINS) NEVER DM FIRST”
rule is simple for Telegram if you got DM’d by an Admin or so called a support agent 100% it’s an impersonator scammer so never engage block&report
Wow! this is so disheartening @GeminiRising, So sorry for your loss. The raised alarm will give other Nearians awareness about what is happening and we all would be more careful.
@KriptoRaptor and @mecsbecs thanks for the information, I’m sure it will help us all identify the bad eggs around our wonderful community.
Yes there are screenshots of the fake Fritz and the real Fritz’s accounts in the above account. I will report it to Telegram. Thanks for the link.
Hello! Here real Fritz at your service again. Sorry for everything you went through.
Want to highlight the following:
As @KriptoRaptor said, there is only one official telegram group with the check mark given by Telegram itself, the link is on near.org (the scammers called themselves Official but there is no checkmark).
@frnvpr had a great idea to offer a place for support on this forum, I do believe it is a safe platform as is ours.
The pics at the beginning make us (me and @TheGo1denBull) look harsh, but it was difficult to make you understand at that moment that we weren’t the scammers.
Thanks for the apologies but no need for that, I am glad we finally were able to explain u that we weren’t the scammers, and again as I told u on private chat, I really really sorry and send you positive strong energies for u to keep going further and recover from this.
Sorry about what happened. It’s a sad one tbh… I hope things go well with you in the long run.
I also support the suggestion made by @frnvpr. If this could be possible @David_NEAR
Hi @GeminiRising , I am truly sorry for this experience.
Please always keep your mindset as: Anyone DMs you first on Telegram, Discord is 99% scammers/imposters.
Always raise red flag when you receive some links from others.
We will spread your story to the community so others can learn this lesson and avoid this type of situation happening again.
Again, I hope everything can get better soon.
Stay safe.
Bailey12
We are really sorry for your loss, as a member of Concierge team, we always have impersonators who try to lurk and scam people.
Plz stay vigilant as admin never dm you first.
Once again, I hope you getting more healthy and wealthy after the incident.
Yes, that is the main reason I posted it here. To warn others…
So sorry to hear this!
Thanks, it is a important warning indeed
Recommended tittle for the warning:
"NEAR PROTOCOL" without checkmark verified status on Telegram is a scam group
As it can be seen here, we did as NEAR COMMUNITY a great effort to receive the verification checkmark to help avoid this kind of situation:
But I was in the check marked group. The scammers were in that group.
Nope, that didn’t happen, sorry for your confusion.
You could receive a private messenger from an impersonator who at the moment was in the verified group. But, the group conversation you might had with the impersonator wasn’t on the verified group because if that happens we just ban the impersonator on the spot.
We @ConciergeTeam take care of that group 24/7.
about the address:
I think this address belongs to some exchange, such as Binance
@7747991786f445efb658b69857eadc7a57b6b475beec26ed14da8bc35bb2b5b6
And this address is the deposit address of the scammers.
@d647be6806b3000006c36082c3ebec68869e781baea909ffd27c27f808f78338
So I think maybe you can call the police and maybe they can ask Binance whom the address belongs to.
